• September 27, 1999
• Vol. 52
• No. 12

Juliette's Romeo

Actress Juliette Lewis Marries Pro Skateboarder (and Actor) Steve Berra

• 

From PEOPLE Magazine

Juliette Lewis was always a young woman in a hurry. By 18, she had an Oscar nomination (for 1991's Cape Fear); at. 23, she was in drug rehab and sought therapy at a Scientology center. And on her wedding day, Sept. 9, dressed in a traditional white gown, she quickly scampered up a Big Sur, Calif., hillside. "Her veil started blowing in the wind," says her sister and assistant Brandy Lewis, 23, one of only six guests at the ceremony. "It was beautiful."

It seems, though, that love was almost an afterthought for Lewis, 26, and pro skateboarder Steve Berra, also 26, who wrote and directed the forthcoming indie film 7-Teen Sips, once played Cheech Marin's son on Nash Bridges and appeared on Felicity. The pair met through Brandy two years ago but dated for just a few months. "They're best friends who make each other laugh," Juliette's sister says. So they planned a 9/9/99 wedding ("a fun date," Brandy explains) on a cliff near a waterfall at dusk. "They wanted to escape any notoriety and have it be just for themselves," says Lewis's mother, graphic designer Glenis Batley, who, like her ex, Juliette's father, Geoffrey Lewis (Clint Eastwood's sidekick in the 1978 movie Every Which Way but Loose), wasn't present. Her reaction to the bride's choice of groom? "I'm ecstatic! I love him!"

For their honeymoon, the pair were off to Manhattan to take in the spring fashion shows. Has the once- troubled Lewis grown up enough to make, marriage work? Wait and see. She recently told Britain's Sunday Express, "I have this kind of self-pride I that I didn't have before. I really feel very proud of myself."